How The Use Of Drones Increased Across India In The Covid-19 Pandemic

The Covid-19 crisis has resulted in the increased deployment of drones in multiple states, such as Delhi, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Telangana, for surveillance and containment activities.

With Covid-19-related lockdowns in the country, several police forces have used drones to surveil streets to enforce a lockdown and make announcements while some states have used drones to spray disinfectants over areas that were the most vulnerable to the virus.

The exercise has been a huge success, and the police have been able to scramble gatherings across the city on many occasions.

The money being spent on this exercise is hefty — average cost of operations ranged from Rs 8,000 to Rs 12,000 per day per drone and is dependent on the area covered in acres.

But operations in Delhi, for instance, have been done with no financial exchange in place. The operational cost of the exercise in Varanasi, which included service and chemical costs, were covered by the city’s administration.

GARUD

In what has emerged as a trend in drone surveillance of the lockdowns, the drones and pilots that took off as part of this surveillance exercise were not authorised by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and did not have NPNT (No Permission, No Take-off), which is a clearance required from the DGCA before each drone takes flight.

On 5 May 2020, the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the DGCA allowed the use of Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) or drones by government entities for Covid-19-related operations by issuing a conditional exemption under Rule 160 of the Aircraft Rules 1937.

Under this conditional exemption, government entities were allowed to deploy drones to conduct aerial surveillance, aerial photography, and public announcements related to Covid-19.

The regulator created a portal specifically for government bodies to deploy drones for Covid-19-related work, such as aerial surveillance and photography and for public announcements.

Government bodies can also use the portal to authorise third-party drone service providers to operate drones on their behalf. Called GARUD (Government Authorisation for Relief Using Drones), the portal will fast-track conditional exemptions to government agencies for Covid-19-related drone operations.

However, governments in multiple states, including Delhi, Amritsar, Kerala, and Telangana, had already been using drones to either enforce the nationwide lockdown of 2020 or spray disinfectants at certain areas, flouting norms laid down by DGCA.

Delhi

Delhi Police used drones around the Jamia Milia Islamia area — a popular site for anti-CAA protests — to monitor the situation in the area even before the Prime Minister announced the nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the pandemic.

After the nationwide lockdown was announced, Delhi Police used drones yet again to warn people against violating the curfew.

Delhi Police has partnered with TechEagle Innovation, Drone Federation of India, and Skyrise Innovations to deploy these drones. TechEagle Innovations is owned by online food delivery company, Zomato. Notably, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are partnering with TechEagle to deploy drones.

There were 15-20 operational surveillance drones surveilling various parts of Delhi on any given day. If the drone suspected any gathering, the announcement was made for immediate dispersion through the speaker attached to the drone.

The surveillance drones have the capability to record footage and also relay live feed on a separate screen. Each surveillance drone pilot was accompanied by two Delhi Police personnel on the ground. The live feed of the drone’s camera goes on an iPad held by the police officials on the ground, and the same is also relayed, over an Amazon Web Services server, to a dashboard at the office of that respective district’s DCP.

While watching the live feed, if any police personnel felt that a particular section should be recorded, it is “only then” that the operator would start recording the footage.

Mumbai, Maharashtra

Mumbai Police carried out drone surveillance for coronavirus lockdowns at Wadala, Malad, Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road, Madh Island, Versova, Chakala, Chembur, Dadar, Mankhurd, Juhu, Ghatkopar, Prabhadevi, Worli- Koliwada Borivali , Lamington Road, Dharavi, Malvani, Dahisar, Goregaon, Swastik Park, and Kurla (East), among other areas.

The Drone Federation of India (DFI), a non-government, not-for-profit, industry-led body, along with Mumbai-based Sagar Defence Engineering, and DroneStark Technologies, partnered with Mumbai Police to deploy surveillance drones in the city to keep an eye out on lockdown violators and enforce the lockdown.

Over 45 surveillance and loudspeaker drones were given the permission to dot the city’s skyline. On an average, there were 20-25 drones flying every day. For every 10 surveillance drones, one loudspeaker drone was used.

The drone pilot had an 8-inch tall screen using which they could navigate the drone around an area. The same footage could also be relayed to the Mumbai Police control centre near Crawford Market. The footage was relayed over a platform hosted on an Amazon Web Services server.

Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

Drones were being used in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi, a city with a population of 1.4 million, for spraying disinfectant in Covid-19 hotspots and containment areas, isolation areas, quarantine areas, and shelter homes.

Garuda Aerospace, a Chennai-based private company, provided the drones, which were airlifted from Chennai with special permission from the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Amritsar, Punjab

Unlike drone operations in Delhi and Mumbai, some drones deployed in Amritsar to keep an eye out on lockdown violators were far more sophisticated. These were equipped with artificial intelligence-based onboard software capable of detecting humans from around 400 feet away, along with the distance between two people and could send the police the GPS coordinates of a person violating the lockdown norms.

The drones were supplied to the police in Amritsar by a company called Skylark Labs, which has offices in Hyderabad, Amritsar, and San Francisco.

Equipped with an AI-based system, Skylark Labs’ drones could alert the police in case of any lockdown violations without someone having to monitor a live feed all the time.

The operators flying the drones for the police were Skylark Labs’ employees.

South India

In Tamil Nadu, the government was carrying out pilot studies on spraying disinfectants on the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital and the Greater Chennai Corporation buildings.

Kerala Police and Telangana Police deployed drones across several districts to keep an eye on Covid-19 lockdown violations.

Kerala Police tweeted a compilation video of drone footage recorded in the state where people could be seen running through paddy fields, on beaches, upon sighting the drone.

In Kerala’s Kasargod district, the police hired drones from individuals, and the footage recorded by those was stored on police’s mobile phones.

Other States

Indore’s civic body hired a couple of drones to spray disinfectants especially in vegetable markets and crowded streets.

In Chhattisgarh, the government initiated a Rs 2.3 crore project to use drones to spray disinfectants in hospital areas and government offices and buildings, among others.

In Jammu and Kashmir — which was at the time reeling from a seven-month-long internet shutdown — police used drones to make public safety announcements asking people to stay indoors.